I wanted to provide some feedback on the different campaigns I've done in 0.95.1a, each with a different skill focus.
Run number 1: Hyperions and the Personal Radiant Run (started prior to RC6, but continued through)
Combat 5: Combat Endurance, Impact Mitigation, Field Modulation, Target Analysis, Systems Expertise
Leadership 2: Wolfpack Tactics, Crew Training
Technology 8: Navigation, Gunnery Implants, Energy Weapon Mastery, Electronics Warfare, Flux Regulation, Cybernetic Augmentation, Neural Link, Automated Ships
End game fleet: Radiant (Flagship), Hyperion (Flagship), 2x Odyssey, 4x Hyperion, 3x Alpha Core Glimmer
Summary: Doesn't really come together until level 13 (Systems Expertise + Neural Link + Automated Ships) but when it does, it feels totally worth it. System Expertise Radiants are just that good.
"Long comments"
For 0.95.1a, for my first run, I decided on a general playthrough, going with the flow, but with the aim to try out at least one new mechanic. Which I decided was going to be neural link plus Radiants. Early on I found a Hyperion on sale, and shortly after, 2 more. Eventually got a 300k ship building mission offer, and bought 3 more. This was before the hotfix came through raising the prices, so they were 80k a pop at the double price. The price increase definitely felt warranted.
So anyways, if the game hands you 6 super frigates, you go Wolfpack Tactics. Started with a bit of exploring, a bit of Galatia missions, and bit of bounties. Grabbed some Herons with Daggers to provide some extra HE oomph behind the 6 Hyperions. Eventually took down a Paragon and salvaged it with 3 d-mods. By this point was finishing up the Galatia story line, got the Zig and stashed it, and finally got the red planet mission. Lucked out and salvaged the Radiant from that, and was off and running with a Neural Linked Radiant. Which initially wasn't as awesome as I expected. Colonized a cryosleeper system in the farthest corner of the sector (-28% isolation penalty, plus -13% for pirate/pather hostilities), and started to farm mid-tier bounties (200-300k). Finally hit level 14 and System Expertise which started to make piloting the Radiant feel really good. The extra speed and manueverability provided by more and faster charges makes it handle just about right to me.
Went through a number of fleet iterations, trying different combinations with the Radiant. Paragon, Herons, Hyperions. Swap in some Furies. Swap in some Apogees. Swap out Paragon and carriers for Odysseys. Trade Hyperion for 3 alpha core Glimmers. They were all Ordo capable, and values at least felt in the ballpark. Things still might need some tweaking, but from a top level overview, overall DP valuations seem OK and not enough to prevent good performance in late game campaign fights.
By the way, Heavy Blaster SO Glimmers have a nasty damage output for their 5 DP (rivaling that of 15 DP Hyperions), but they do have a much higher rate of destruction than Hyperions, generally see one blown up each Ordo fight. Did all the end game fights. While I took some losses against the Ordo + super redacted mission, I still felt comfortable in final margin of victory with the neural linked Radiant, 2 Odysseys, 5 Hyperions and 3 alpha Glimmers. Basically the only order I gave during the fight was harass the super redacted ship.
Overall, despite the 50 OP neural integrator and two Tier 5 skill tax, the Radiant still felt worth it, and was typically dealing 40% of the fleet's damage, and more than triple an Odyssey's prorata DP contribution according to the Detailed Combat Results mod.
Run number 2: Iron man spacer start with Hull Restoration and Best of the Best (aka "Who needs Technology and Combat Endurance?")
Combat 5: Impact Mitigation, Field Modulation, Target Analysis, Ballistic Mastery, Missile Specialization
Leadership 5: Tactical Drills, Crew Training, Carrier Group, Officer Training, Best of the Best
Industry 5: Field Repairs, Ordiance Expertise, Polarized Armor, Containment Procedures, Hull Restoration
End game fleet: 2x Onlsaught (XIV), 2x Legion (XIV), Eagle (XIV), Fury, Afflictor, 2x Scarab, 2x Omen (no officers)
Summary: Officers feel like level 7 or 8, getting +15% CR on top of an extra hullmod. Ordinance Expertise on all officers is probably better than Flux Regulation.
Also, ballistics with +5+10+10+20=+45% damage against capitals feels nice.
"Long comments"
Next run was to test out the iron man spacer option and see if the Industry tree was up to the task of keeping me going. First mission I took in my trusty kite (S) was a spy satelite mission offered in Corvus. 2 minutes later success earned me a high importance military contact on Jangala. Prioritized them and kept stopping by for cheap ships. Eventually got offered Dominator (XIV), Onslaught, and eventually an Onslaught (XIV) through them. Best contact ever.
Unfortunately, early spending on "relatively cheap" capitals and maybe a mistake or two in a combat caused significant cash flow issues, so I had to sign up with a Hegemony commission for a time to make ends meet. While the Field repairs plus Hull Restoration combination at level 5 helped a lot, it still didn't solve the issue of getting half your fleet blown up and paying for supplies and crew to get back up to nominal CR. Normal game probably wouldn't have been an issue, but a difference of a free 15,000 credits a month versus a 30,000 credit debt per month (at mid levels) can be significant early on.
The eventual combination of Best of the Best, Hull Restoration, and Level 6 officers felt like level 7 or 8 officers because I was able to take Ordinance Expertise instead of Combat Endurance, plus the extra hull mod being worth something like a skill (Hardened Shields is like Field Modulation, Auxilliary Thrusters is like Helmsmanship for capitals ships, etc). And the fact I didn't really care too much if a ship blew up let me play much looser and risky. It still hit the wallet, but 20,000 credits to restore CR on an Onslaught (XIV) is a lot cheaper than 1,000,000 credits to restore d-mods.
Containment Procedures made adding a buch of Ox tugs to increase burn speed relatively painless, allowing me to compensate partly for the lack of Navigation. The fleet sensor profile is crazy large by default, but even so was still able to separate Remnant fleets with the base 10 burn speed. Also spending a few story points let me grab insulated engine assembly and efficiency overhaul on the tugs, which makes it about as bad as just having Capitals in general.
Top end of the fleet ended up being two Onslaught (XIV) and two Legion (XIV), although the later took a bit of exploring though. Was using basic Legions prior to those finds. That combination seems to work well for me, and typically each is doing 15-18% of the damage dealt in the fleet, along with 13-20% of the prorata DP. The Onslaught personally piloted was around 40% damage dealt. Frigates used mostly have been Scarabs and Omens, along with a token Afflictor. Middle of the grouping has been switched a lot, trying a Dominator (XIV), Eagles (XIV), Falcon (XIV), Furies, and Eradicators.
This testing was post flux bump on the Eagles and Falcons, but still haven't really found a nice punchy build I'm happy with on them. They can stall and distract with long range beams + hypervelocity + heavy mauler, but I generally feel that's better done by frigates. Eradicators feel solid through the middle game, I think start to lose some of their shine when up against late game foes, which perhaps makes sense for a "light" low tech cruiser. SO Furies still feel the same, if a bit more expensive.
Overall, I liked this run, and felt the synergy was cool and powerful, and happily proved Technology isn't a must have.
Run number 3: Neural link test with Afflictor and Onslaught
Combat 5: Combat Endurance, Impact Mitigation, Field Modulation, Target Analysis, Missile Specialization
Leadership 2: Wolfpack Tactics, Crew Training
Technology 5: Navigation, Gunnery Implants, Flux Regulation, Phase Coil Tuning, Neural Link
Industry 3: Field Repairs, Ordinance Expertise, Polarized Armor
Fleet: Afflictor (Flagship), Onslaught XIV (Flagship), Onslaught XIV, 2x Legion XIV, 2x Hyperion, 2x Medusa, 2x Scarab
Summary: I wanted to like Neural link on it's own, but the skill is clearly a late addition to the game, and doesn't neatly fit into the overall game experience. There are a host of minor but annoying interactions that keep it from being good, on top of what seems like penalities this skill has that no other skill does, presumably to keep it in check. Overall, trying to use it in campaign actually feels like it makes the fleet weaker, as opposed to even simply doing no net harm and merely being a skill pick opportunity cost.
Side note: This was also my first run in 0.95.1a using Medusas, and realizing they may have been power crept by their nearest competitors. I feel like 360 degree shield capable ships used to be speical back in the day, but now we've got Shrikes, Scarabs, Hyperions, Furies, Auroras, and Odysseys which are all fast with manueverability systems and can get 360 degree shields. Omens, Apogees, Astrals, and Paragons naturally have 360 degree shields. The only things in the high tech lineup that can't are Wolves, Tempests, and Medusa. I wonder if the Tempests and Medusa might be due for a shield arc increase, especially now that AI controlled Tempests can throw away their PD. Medusas do drop their shields when they skim, so I probably wouldn't go with a front shield on AI Medusas, but would it hurt to bump the Medusa's shield arc from 120 to 150 to match the rest of the line up these days?
"Long comments"
I went into this run wanting to try neural link by itself, and grabbed an afflictor early. The problem was, I could really justify using neural link to switch to other frigates or destroyers early game. And switching between two Afflictors didn't feel helpful because of the setup and positioning requirements. Might as well just sit in one, and not bother spending the skill point and losing 600 flux capacity on two afflictors.
I will say I did use the new neural reset feature, but the times when a double burn drive on an Onslaught felt actually meaningful as opposed to simply amusing were few. I mean, sure I could catch a fleeing frigate on occassion, but typically it's better simply to issue a Hyperion or Scarab an eliminate order, and focus the firepower of a capital on the front line. You're still not winning any manueverability battles with an Onslaught. As for the Afflictor, the anti-matter blasters and needing to vent in between each attack run set the cadence more so than the ability. There were times when I'd switch in when the ability was already running, and need to vent to stop it (potentially while at high soft flux from the AI using the anti-matter blasters) and then switch out/in back again to do the reset in order to then use it on the target I wanted. So I was able to use the reset in that case, but it wasn't quick. When that happens, it kills any sense of responsive coordination. Now this didn't happen every time, but it happened occasionally enough that it was a minor irritation.
Overall, it feels like the neural link skill and the nature of the game seem to be fighting:
1) I see no way to change the aggressiveness of the AI controlled neural linked ship. Which I think means it defaults to steady, which makes it not a great choice for SO ships, for example, and tends to make it backoff where I'd want it to push forward. Similarly, I typically prefer at least aggressive on my capital ships. Despite being able to switch, I can't actually control both ships simultaneously. If I try to switch rapidly to force both, I wind up with ships basically moving forwards (when I'm in control) and backwards when I'm trying to get the other ship into an too aggressive position for the AI. It's even worse if my ships go over the 50 DP limit, at which point I can spend a variable number of seconds each transfer in control of neither ship.
Suggestion: Add an ability to set the player's autopilot aggressiveness on the officer screen, similar to how we choose officer aggressiveness. Bonus if that same choose an aggressiveness screen also applies to alpha/beta/gamma core ships.
2) Different ship types want different skills, but it's hard to have enough points everywhere to pick optimal for distinctly different ships. Afflictor and Onslaught are both armor tankers, and benefit from more flux, but I had to choose between Gunnery Implants (Onslaught) and Energy Weapon Mastery (Afflictor). Similarly, Field Modulation is a must have for a phase ship, while I might have preferred Ballistic Mastery for the Onslaught (typically I'm maxing soft flux, not hard flux from the shield). So peak capability for each ship is lowered compared to specializing in just one.
3) If the AI gets the other ship killed (generally the Afflictor) it feels *terrible*. Now I'm stuck with an Onslaught which is down a hullmod, and no in battle benefit left. And said loss of ability isn't even necessarily my fault (although it probably is). I could pack additional ships with neural link, but then that means having excess over 240 DP in case a ship dies, diluting fleet skills, and it's a sub-optimal ship if I deploy it because some other ship got destroyed, since it's down a hull mod (or flux stats).
4) If I order the Afflictor to escort my Onslaught to keep it out of trouble, it does so, but when I take control of it, the AI will assign a different ship to escort, which is something I don't actually want. And then when I switch back to the Onslaught from the Afflictor, the escorting ship (which likely didn't even reach me) will reverse direction and try to go back to what it was doing, which feels really inefficient. And micromanaging the Afflictor/Onslaught combination with engage command points just feels unfun compared to my more hands off combat style. It forces me to pause more and pay more attention to the command map, since if I don't, there's the posibility of the AI being way out of position when I want to use it. It also eats command points rapidly.
5) Interaction with transfer command at the beginning of battle has anti-synergy, because now you've got ships with the inverse of best of the best (i.e. down a hull mod equivalent) applied but no compensating benefit. Unlike any other skill in the game, this one doesn't transfer with you or apply to your whole fleet. You have to pre-prepare at a dock (or else eat a bunch of CR hit, which is arguably just as big or even larger penalty right before combat).
6) If you are running iron man and actually lose a fight, and one of the neural linked ships goes down, you're out of luck on using your skill until you get back to dock, or take an even further CR hit to add the hullmod. It's just extra penalty on top of the penalty of losing the ships in the first place.
7)I'm curious what the idea behind the switch delay for ship combinations over 50 DP is? Encourage you to use small ships with the skill? As it stands, if you're just using it for a spare officer, the jump delay doesn't really prevent that, and well, the steady AI typically prevents real close coordination for time sensitive combos. It certainly kills any ability associated with the neural reset, as having zero player input for 10 seconds (from switch in and then out - or worse, the ability is in use so you have to switch two more times for like 20 seconds down time) feel like a way higher cost than reseting an ability on even a 60 second cooldown (like from a carrier).
I can solo some intel bounty fleets in an Odyssey for example, but I can't duo them with this skill. The partner is just generally going to get killed, so I'm not seeing how this could have high end duo applications. You're always going to need a fleet to help the AI of the ship you are not piloting at the moment, so it doesn't really push the boundries of what a "solo" player can do. Chain deploying is going to be better. Or maybe it requires a higher level of player skill than I can muster to get that benefit.
Overall, I don't see why the skill warrants say, losing 50 OP spread over two capitals and potentially negating the best part of the skill (neural reset) which isn't even that strong, when used with over 50 DP worth of ships. With the improvements to mercenaries (1 story point every 2 years) and the fact that Automated ships is literally the other side of tier 5 technology selection which provides one or more elite level 8 officers on good to amazing ships, means the extra, potentially high level officer doesn't feel worth it assuming you don't bother switching. Neither your neural linked ship, nor the cored ships help with officer DP determination at the start of combat, for example, so might as well go the automated ship route and grab an Alpha Radiant.
I'll also note you are incentivized to stick a Combat Endurance officer in the other neural linked ship, and pull them out every time you're about to enter combat because Combat Endurance from your character doesn't apply to that ship.
Perhaps others have had better results with it, but mostly it felt frustrating to try and leverage it to actually improve the strength of the fleet. I like the concept, but I'm not sure how to make it actually work in such a way as to actually be a significant benefit. I can't justify a 5-10% OP penalty on any ship you might even want to try to use it on, which is unlike any other skill in the game, since they don't actually cost power off of ships. At worst, all other skills might take other resources (credits/story points) and raise the peak power of ships, but none of them actively require you to lower it. The cost to even try to use it effectively a negative skill (5000 flux on an Onslaught is roughly the same as non-Elite field modulation in terms of damage absorption), which implies it needs to be at least twice as good as any personal skill - which it doesn't feel like to me.
Except maybe in the case of self piloting a Radiant, like my 1st play through. But I feel a good skill should be able to stand on it's own merit.
Author
Topic: 0.95.1a play through comments on a few different skill sets (Read 3449 times)